44 THE CHINESE SUGAR-CANE. 



syrup-miking or for fodder, though care should 

 be taken to thin out, if too thick, so that the cane 

 would be stout enough to resist the storms that 

 sometimes lay the stover corn prostrate. We also 

 find that that which was planted the 2 2d of 

 March was fit for cutting on the 2 2d of July, 

 being a period of one hundred and twenty days, 

 which accords with my experience with it during 

 the last season, and which shows most conclu- 

 sively that it can be grown in the New England 

 States ; for it may be put into the ground ordi- 

 narily as early as the first to the tenth of May, 

 and consequently would be suitable for cutting 

 from the first to the tenth of September. This 

 would give us the whole month of September, 

 and, in some seasons, considerable of October, 

 in which to manufacture our sugar, or syrup. 

 Again, we learn from the account that it with- 

 stood a most severe drouth, which it is said would 

 have proved very severe to corn, and probably 

 materially lessened the crop, and yet the cane 

 did not suffer much. We are also shown the 

 manner in which the juice was clarified, which 

 we shall do well to notice, for I believe there is 

 no better clarifiei than lime-water, though there 

 needs to be somt careful experiments to deter- 

 mine the quanUty that shall be used. For, where 



